Christopher R. Hill, former US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, was US Ambassador to Iraq, South Korea, Macedonia, and Poland, a US special envoy for Kosovo, a negotiator of the Dayton Peace Accords, and the chief US negotiator with North Korea from 2005-2009. He is Chief Adviser to the Chancellor for Global Engagement and Professor of the Practice in Diplomacy at the University of Denver, and the author of Outpost.

In 2011 the people who took to the streets in the cities of Syria had genuine grievances. Assad's reputation as a British educated reformer may even have had an encouraging effect on the protests with the hope that democratic change was possible. If Assad had done the analysis and entered into dialogue with those calling for positive change in Syria the situation in Syria could have been very different. For whatever reason instead of acting on the offer he made of elections, a new constitution and more democracy the regime began harsh crackdown. Ambassador Hill suggests that instead of turning away from Assad that the Obama administration should have negotiated with the regime and recognized Russia's interests as well.
The Arab Spring was not a CIA plot. People, many educated in the West, had aspirations for democracy and the tools offered by Twitter, cellphones, and other technology permitted unprecedented communications to advance an agenda for change.
ISIS emerged in Iraq and not in Syria. ISIS expanded into Syria as the regime's attention was consumed by the popular revolt and the lightly populated territory seized by ISIS was less critical to the government. ISIS had little interest in fighting the regime and the regime had little interest in fighting ISIS.
"What is certain is that the outcome will have a major impact on Syria’s neighbors and the broader international community. Their interests, together with the interests of the Syrian people, must inform any effort to end the carnage and create conditions for long-term peace. " This statement cannot be argued against. It appears that this has been at the heart of US strategy in Syria for at least the past year with a goal a process that addresses the interests of all Syrian people whether in the territory under government control, or under opposition control, or in refugee camps or in exile. All voices need to be heard.
The strategy now being pursued by Assad with the support of Russia appears to be to seize as much strategic territory as possible regardless of civilian casualties or public outrage to achieve military victory.
The U.S. has focused on driving back ISIS in Syria enlisting Kurds and other opposition groups in the fight against ISIS. If Russia and Assad choose to exclude, and even destroy Syrian opposition that has at least espoused interest in a Syrian future that does not auger well for "planning how a complex and devastated society can be administered in the future." A half million people have been killed and half the country is displaced. Continued killing only increases the difficulty of reaching stability. President Carter has made an eloquent statement that the killing must be stopped. Russia indeed has stepped into a quagmire. It needs to decide a new course to end the killing.

The Obama weakness, in relation to advice and political pressure, has been of inability to overcome the momentum of hubristic persistence in the United States. The United States is not alone, of course, in such persistence, but it's a particularly difficult situation when forces both of advice from the entrenched and the perils of admitting the need to change direction in a democracy. The president leaps from candidate 'I will change' to the need to make decisions and then the problem of letting go of the fire hose that's been turned on.

Robert McNamara was quite wrong in his little tract 'Blundering into Disaster' in my view, in its advocacy of stay the course and stick with the plan. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1398587.Blundering_Into_Disaster_Surviving_The
Consider the value of the great anti-advice blunder when Reagan and Gorbachev kicked out the advisors in Reykjavik. The more useful perspective is that of the late Barbara Tuchman in The March of Folly
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10302.The_March_of_Folly
wherein discussing the propensity of states to make dreadful mistakes contrary to national interest. Over and over again.

Unfortunately, American policy has been shaped by the failure to appreciate that the Iranian Revolution in Iran, the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by militants, and the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan - all occurring in 1979 - had unleashed a profound crisis in the Islamic world. Thirty-seven years later, there is still a failure to recognize that until a legitimate political and religious accommodation which arises from agreements among the multiple warring factions is established, external intervention will only lead to further fragmentation.
The Carter Doctrine and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan were ill-considered efforts to stem the historical shifts that were underway in the Islamic world. At least , Gorbachev and his generation knew when to cut their losses. Carter's successors have apparently yet to learn that lesson.

Reading many comments from other sources it seems far more likely that the US actively aided in establishing ISIS. The author here is not going ever to own up to that. It wouldn't do!. The situation is entirely to be laid at the feet of Washington's Neo -cons, an incompetent group who get nations into trouble and sell arms to both,even all, sides. Crazy mad and evil people.

Again, you show your deep knowledge and understanding of global affairs (Bravo) and not only from an American perspective (Double Bravo!)

President Obama's presidency can only be termed a success IMO. Obama has restored American prestige and got it out of two disastrous wars -- and I don't term them disastrous because the US military did anything wrong, on the contrary, they did exactly as they were ordered, or better -- as they always do.

He lifted the American economy by orders of magnitude, every stat from the unemployment rate, to lowering the deficit, the return of GDP growth, consumer confidence, and much more, are all doing well.

His social policy; ObamaCare (A+ Mr. President!) his obvious concern for American citizens, his work and Mrs. Obama's work to lower divisiveness/intolerance, keeping the U.S. on the legal side of things in NAFTA matters, and more, are positives.

On foreign policy *begun* during his two terms; Just as President Bush was misled about the reasons the U.S. should go to war against Iraq (the U.S. Iraq Study Group said he was misled) -- President Obama was misled about the Arab Spring, how it would eventually pan-out, and similarly with Syria, Turkey, and present-day Israel/Palestine.

Neocons see what they want to see. Call it tunnel-vision, looking through the wrong end of the telescope, the ends justifies the means, blinded by (too much) American Exceptionalism -- whatever you term it, it keeps getting U.S. presidents in trouble and lowers American prestige globally -- and it has no place in the logic and reality-based intelligence cycle.

The CIA needs to get back to it's roots, data collection, analysis, dissemination -- all based on logic, sound reasoning, experience, and *the reality on the ground*. CIA needs to be the world's go-to resource for everything, all the time -- not the producer of reports favouring an outcome that has been predetermined by (any Administration) officials to gain short term political points.

I have long been one of the voices calling for *strengthening the moderates in any country* to the extent that they (eventually) wind up drowning-out the extremists. But it's a thing that takes years of solid intelligence work and keen, results-oriented oversight by politicians.

It certainly isn't something that can quickly be thrown together because suddenly we have a new occupant in the White House.

Going to war against Syria, a country with a huge, dedicated and advanced military, in terrain (unlike Iraq) that definitely favours the defender, and with 21.53 million human (civilian) shields, and strong ties with Russia, was always a laughable idea -- at least to any U.S. combat-experienced General or Admiral.

So that was 'out' all along. The Pentagon would've never approved that.

The (non-combat) media might have thought that was an option, but it wasn't. Not unless America is willing to suffer 100,000 U.S. troop casualties, several hundred downed U.S. fighter pilot hostage situations, and probably 10 million Syrian deaths (most likely due to starvation/heat exposure/being tortured or killed en masse by ISIS/human shields/bombs from any side/or just walking down the wrong street)

Afterwards, even the American people might not have forgiven Mr. Obama, to say nothing of the recriminations from around the world. (Possibly an Arab Oil Embargo #2, trade blocked with China, and most likely, America forced to leave many of it's foreign military bases by unhappy nations and their citizens, and worse)

Therefore, President Obama made the right Syria decisions out of a bad set of options.

This part of your essay jumps out to me as pure Gold:

"What pundits, politicians, and the public should be advocating is a more integrated foreign policy. Combining leverage and logic, such an approach would advance short- and long-term objectives, selected and prioritized according to their capacity to benefit American interests, not to mention the rest of the world, in a sustainable way." -- Christopher Hill

President Obama, Mrs. Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry deserve much credit for the successes of the past 8 years. America *got back on track* after accepting some bad advice; Starting two disastrous wars and in regards to the subprime mortgage crisis bubble.

And soon, America will need a new Secretary of State. I hope you get the call, Christopher.

I appreciate Mr. Hills nuanced analysis, but some important nuances were overlooked that are critical in understanding the options, past and present, open to the Obama administration. In Syria, unlike Libya, there were no allies, European or Middle Eastern, willing to join a coalition to militarily attack the Assad regime. There were allies for sanctions but American aircraft and troops would have been alone in the invasion. The only viable and trustworthy ally inside Syria were the Kurds, since the "moderate" opposition militias were all undemocratic and likely to use US weaponry in terrorist attacks or provide others with those weapons. The Kurds could not be too enthusiastically supported due to Turkey's distrust of their independence movement and Turkey's role in NATO. If the Obama administration had heavily invested weapons or troops in the region, Republicans, who were demanding such actions, would have immediately started blaming the administration for failures of judgement and aiding terrorists. This is corroborated by the fact that no Congressional bills were sponsored to initiate such actions, because that would have resulted in politicians having a voting record on the issue that would have been harder to ignore. Not even Senators Graham and McCain were willing to sponsor legislation.
It is to President Obama's credit that once the scale and duration of the civil war were better understood, at which time Russian and Turkish airstrikes had already started, that American troops were not deployed since escalation of the conflict against Russian and Turkish interests would have been inevitable. Syria is not worth World War III with President Putin.
The biggest nuance that Mr. Hill has forgotten is that polling data showed that US citizens were overwhelmingly against yet another foreign invasion. Even if the threat of ISIS had been understood at the very beginning, Americans have seen how hard it is to root out the Taliban from Afghanistan, which still seems impossible to remove US troops from. The US military is spread thin and is having little success in recruiting young people to join our volunteer services, especially since the war in Afghanistan has been going on most of their lives. If the US creates yet another military excursion, it will have to re-instate the draft. But that will not happen because draft dodging and protests in the streets would be rampant. The defense budget, as well as the Veterans Administration budget, would have to increase by an amount that could not be easily hidden in a Paul Ryan led Congress insisting on budget neutral spending offsets.
There was never a time that American intervention would have been effective. The pundits that called for intervention in 2011, and those that call for it now, are not only naive but unconcerned about US citizens who do not want to die in such a war or fund it.

To understand why the USA started all these wars it is sufficient to read Brzezinski's "The grand chessboard". 1997.
The rest are wild shots at writing history in such a way that the truth disappears from daylight and sinks into the dark.

Amazing. 5 years too late, but amazing. A tiny flicker of sanity, a nice break in the battle of head vs brick wall. The damage is done though. In this age of dumbed down politics, we shouldn't be too polite, lest the lessons of the immediate past will be lost on future leaders. Obama allowed the Democratic wing of the NeoCon's to run his foreign policy, and this is what they did. That was his mistake. We can expect more of the same in the immediate future, but hopefully the election of 2020 will bring in someone who remembers the view from today.

History cannot be distorted, it has been written. Afghanistan, Iraq, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, etc… were handled appallingly by this US administration, thus the price that is being paid today by the ME, EU and elsewhere.

One bewildering feature of the Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, etc. crises is that there seem to be no consequences for for the analysts who get things wrong, the editorial writers reinforcing group think, and the politicans who don't ask their staffs to explain why things keep going wrong. Perhaps there should be career consequences for a diplomats, journalists, intelligence and military officers and politicians who help blow up one country after another? Isn't it fair to assess the predictive value of the advice given by these people (including journalists) by looking at past predictions and policies and assessing how they've worked out?

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PS OnPoint

The Mueller report in America, along with reports of interference in this week’s European Parliament election, has laid bare the lengths to which Russia will go to undermine Western democracies. But whether Westerners have fully awoken to the threat is an open question.

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